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City Council approves purchase of vintage airplanes

Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

BIG SPRING, TX

The city council gave the go-ahead to the airpark for a $426,000 purchase of three planes on display at the Hangar 25 Air Museum that were on temporary loan from a benefactor.
During the meeting held Tuesday evening, the city council heard from Airpark Director Jim Little who asked the court for approval to purchase three planes that have been on display at the Hangar 25 Air Museum for the last 14 years.
"In our last meeting, our city council directed us to take a look at the airplanes and negotiate a price for the airplanes," said Little. “The planes represent the essence of the Hangar 25 Air Museum. If they are lost then a good part of that history is lost with it.”
The three planes are the T33, T28, T11, which were on loan to the museum from a benefactor for the last 14 years. However recently the benefactor alerted the museum that he was planning on selling some of his planes, including the ones on display.
The purchase will be paid out of the Airport's oil royalty revenue.
In other news, some council members had differing opinions on the approval of a bid for the roofing repair work that needed to be done on the Potton House. Kent Elliot Roofing was the lowest of seven bids, however, the company was met with disapproval from District 2 representative Carmen Harbour, who has previously worked with the company.
"After we had that hail storm here, Elliot came and did a lot of roofs here and town and we had a lot of complaints about him," said Harbour. “He subcontracted a lot and I don’t recommend him, they have yet to come to my house to fix the problems.”
Other council members, who have dealt with the company, said their experience was much better.
"I used them as well at my office and had the same problem, a leak problem, but they came back within a week and fixed it," said council member Raul Benavides.
Despite the disagreement all the council voted to approve the bid to Kent Elliot Roofing.